Thursday, April 12, 2007

Maribel, Tisha, her son Aaren, Avery and I all set off at 7 Monday morning to go to Philly. We were there to see the boy king. After riding the NJ train to the Septa train, we arrived and headed over to the museum:

Sadly there were no pictures allowed in the exhibit so this guy who was hanging out in the entrance hall is the best you get:

We hit Rosie's Yarn Cellar on a recommendation from Gina. I liked the store a lot. The selection was good and the women who worked there were very helpful but I'm so in yarn diet mode that I couldn't think of anything to buy for. Truly sad.

We decided to do the tourist thing since we were there. We checked out some local sites:

...and visited the Liberty Bell, which was far more impressive than I would have imagined:

I will say though I still can't deal with the post 9/11 world. The amount of security we had to get through to see the bell was insane. It took longer to get through the metal detectors that it did to actually see the damn bell.

I can't say I loved Philly. For two girls from the South Bronx and a Harlem girl to say they were uncomfortable in an urban setting is saying something. I've been talking to a few people about it today and I think that it's because the city is truly depressed. There is no hope or spirit in the air. At our worst the Bronx and Harlem always have had pride and spirit. It could just be that we're used to our home but I was really put off by everything. A fight was breaking out in the mall food court when we were there, all the homeless people we ran into were so angry and aggressive. While we were eating a homeless woman came and asked for money, we all told her no but I had the rest of my food which I wasn't going to eat so I offered it to her. She took it, opened it and told me the fries looked cold so she didn't want it and gave it back...

...in the Bronx we would have taken it and sold it to someone else if we didn't want it ourselves;)